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<blockquote data-quote="doveman" data-source="post: 852227" data-attributes="member: 67412">I'm probably completely off here, but whilst trying to get Skyrim to play nice, I noticed in XP my VRAM usage at idle was only about 10MB whilst in Win7 it was 80MB+. Testing seems to show that this is predominantly due to dwm.exe (Desktop Windows Manager, which gives us transparancy effects, Flip3D, etc). However it doesn't seem that dwm.exe and Aero are totally intertwined. If I switch to a Windows Classic or Basic theme it doesn't kill dwm.exe, but I can do that manually. It does restart itself a couple of times, but eventually it gives up and I can then switch back to an Aero theme without it restarting and my VRAM usage stays low. dwm.exe is also separate from the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service, which is still running.&nbsp;I'm just wondering if whatever MP's dwm-dshowhelper depends on (or even the non-dwm one, I think I recall reading that MP needs Aero fullstop) is still available with dwm.exe killed as it's always nice to only have 10MB VRAM usage at idle rather than 80-100MB, but maybe there could be some benefit for MP as well.&nbsp;Getting off-topic now, but I read an interesting article about using Windows 7 Embedded to run a Media Centre HTPC, with all the benefits of having a more streamlined OS without unnecessary clutter, which sounded intriguing!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="doveman, post: 852227, member: 67412"] I'm probably completely off here, but whilst trying to get Skyrim to play nice, I noticed in XP my VRAM usage at idle was only about 10MB whilst in Win7 it was 80MB+. Testing seems to show that this is predominantly due to dwm.exe (Desktop Windows Manager, which gives us transparancy effects, Flip3D, etc). However it doesn't seem that dwm.exe and Aero are totally intertwined. If I switch to a Windows Classic or Basic theme it doesn't kill dwm.exe, but I can do that manually. It does restart itself a couple of times, but eventually it gives up and I can then switch back to an Aero theme without it restarting and my VRAM usage stays low. dwm.exe is also separate from the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service, which is still running. I'm just wondering if whatever MP's dwm-dshowhelper depends on (or even the non-dwm one, I think I recall reading that MP needs Aero fullstop) is still available with dwm.exe killed as it's always nice to only have 10MB VRAM usage at idle rather than 80-100MB, but maybe there could be some benefit for MP as well. Getting off-topic now, but I read an interesting article about using Windows 7 Embedded to run a Media Centre HTPC, with all the benefits of having a more streamlined OS without unnecessary clutter, which sounded intriguing! [/QUOTE]

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